The present invention relates to a user interface for an event monitor, and more particularly to a user interface using a navigation-based message log filtering technique for an event monitor, such as an MPEG (Moving Pictures Expert Group) transport stream event monitor.
As the digital TV market has grown, there has been an increase in the quantity of information transmitted in associated MPEG transport streams. Such information may include, for example, Electronic Program Guides (EPGS) which cover increasingly long periods of future programming, and interactive programs which have embedded applications. For analysis and monitoring tools this represents an increasingly difficult challenge in terms of minimizing time taken to isolate a fault. In addition, there is a requirement for users who are not expert in MPEG standards and tests to be able to isolate problems, particularly in a monitoring environment.
Known MPEG monitors or analyzers produce large message logs containing non-conformances, errors and general information for display to a user in as meaningful a manner as possible. The entries, or event messages, may be messages reporting errors of varying severity or reporting general information. Each entry in the message log is typically categorized, such as by content and/or test, etc., and the users filter the entries to display selected entries based upon selected components of the categories of interest. This approach requires that the users predetermine filter criteria from information gathered from experience and other features within the analyzer, such as the result of a particular conformance test. The message log is therefore used in isolation from the rest of the analyzer and has a single entry point.
What is desired is a user interface for an event monitor that provides a means for navigating through a message log to produce an automatically filtered group of event messages from the message log that are of special interest to users.